by Spear, Terry
“Aye.” Roberts jumped overboard and headed toward his treasure, shimmering in the rays of sunlight filtering through the foliage. Though he waded waist-deep through the water, none of it stirred with his movement.
“Go, Michael,” Emily urged, wondering why he hesitated.
“He’s gone?” Michael immediately heaved ho, pushing the oars into the swamp water, making as fast an exodus as he could.
A ghostly shot fired into the air, but not at them. Other pirates suddenly appeared—dressed in more ragged clothes, unkempt hair dangling about their shoulders, dirty faces and mottled teeth gleaming—firing their pistols to salute the return of their captain.
“Sorry, I forgot you couldn’t see him.”
“No, I was taking your cue. I was afraid if he thought I couldn’t see him, he’d have the upper hand.”
Only when the dingy was a good distance away from the pirates did Roberts seem to notice he lost Emily to the landlubber, Michael.
“Come back with me lass, you bilge rat!”
“What’s happening?” Michael asked, his voice strained while he worked the oars. “Are they following us?”
“The captain’s calling you names and wants you to return me immediately.”
“Being your steady has been quite a challenge, Emily.”
“We return home, me maties!” the captain shouted. “To Meg and the other lasses.” He scowled at Michael.
Relieved the pirate ghosts stayed with their illusionary chest, Emily patted Michael’s leg. “I’m glad you planned this so well.”
“I had a premonition it would work. It’s like the California Gold Rush. When men had the gold fever, nothing else mattered. Not women, food, or anything. Just gold. I hoped when he caught sight of his treasure, he’d forget about you long enough for us to get away. I assumed he wouldn’t want to stray far from his gold.”
Emily studied Michael’s bronzed muscles, impressed with his physique and again thought about his summer job…a lifeguard. Hmm-hm, and he was all hers. Realizing she’d forgotten about the treasure chest, she glanced back at the pirates. Afraid they’d chase after Michael and her, thinking she was a witch like Roberta who made their treasure vanish, she found their ghostly images fading. The yelling and curses dulled and finally disappeared. The knot in her stomach dissolved. “I think that did it, Michael. I think they’re gone for good.”
Michael breathed a heavy sigh. “Great. Hope this is the last for a good long while.”
Shortly thereafter, he pulled the dinghy next to the sailboat. “We’ll have to reschedule our date at Asheley’s for when Granny’s feeling better, but maybe you’ve had enough ghost visitations for a while.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
* * *
Two weeks later, Emily, Michael, and Granny sat in a booth at Asheley’s. The busy restaurant was filled with chatter and the clinking of silverware against plates. The aroma of spicy beef and chicken scented the air-conditioned air.
Emily glanced around the room, hoping to see the Roaring-Twenties spirit, but ghosts didn’t always make their appearances just to appease an audience so she halfway expected neither the man nor the woman’s ghosts to appear. But tonight they had reason to celebrate.
Granny felt great again, Red and Rocky left Emily alone, and neither Granny nor Emily had any more ghostly visitations.
Reaching across the table, Granny patted Emily’s hand. “Emily, dear, I need to go to the ladies’ room. Would you like to come with me?”
“The ladies’ room.”
“Yes, dear. Sometimes the ghost woman appears in the mirrors.”
“Sure, Granny.”
Emily walked into the restroom with her where the fragrance of violets scented the air, and the Victorian wallpaper added to the old world ambiance. Inside, a young redheaded woman smiled at them while washing her hands. “Looking for the ghosts?”
“Have you seen any sign of them?” Emily asked, hopeful.
“Nope, but you know, some patrons have said they felt as though they were being choked in the hallway, just outside these restrooms. Dishes have been smashed and cooking utensils thrown. Whoever the spirits are, they’re considered malevolent. Still, lots of people come here because the food’s great, and the idea they might catch a glimpse of the spirit world is too tempting not to check out.”
A chill swept over Emily’s arms, and she rubbed them. Had someone choked the woman to death in the restaurant? If Emily had known the spirits were nasty-tempered…
She took a deep breath, trying to settle her nerves. Tonight, she had no intention of trying to appease evil spirits, and she wished now they hadn’t come here.
Granny patted her shoulder, reassuring her. “Let’s have a nice meal.”
Not seeing anything strange, they returned to the dining room.
For a second, Emily paused with Granny, startled. A young woman sat beside Michael dressed in a Flapper dress, the fringe dangling down her legs. She smiled sweetly at Michael whose ears tinged with red as soon as he caught sight of Emily and his grandmother.
Emily stormed across the floor, any anxiety she had about the spirit instantly turning into anger. “Listen,” she said to the woman. “Take a hike. He’s all mine.”
The ghost scowled at her and an icy chill raced down Emily’s spine. Then the apparition vanished.
“You saw her?” Emily asked Michael, knitting her brow.
“Yeah, you don’t think you were a little harsh on her, do you?” Michael stood and let Emily slide into the booth.
“You haven’t seen harsh, Michael, when a girl tries to steal my guy.”
“Happened often?”
“No, just this once. But the word will get around soon enough. You’re mine for keeps.”
“Now you know how I felt about Roberts and you.”
She kissed Michael’s cheek. “You don’t have to worry about me. He needed way too much dental work. Did you see how many teeth he was missing? And how badly the remaining ones looked?”
“I couldn’t see him, remember?”
“She’s a keeper, Michael. I told you so the first time I saw her,” Granny said, lifting a cup of coffee.
He wrapped his arm around Emily’s shoulder. “Yeah, you’re right about that, Granny. For better or worse.”
“For richer or poorer.” Emily tapped her spoon on the table. “You don’t think we might find a little of the pirate’s treasure still buried in the swamp? What if some of the gold coins slipped into the muck? I could buy a new car—”
“No!” both Michael and Granny shouted.
“Okay, then somehow Rocky and Red are going to have to pay.” Emily loved solving puzzles. Somehow, she’d master this one, too. “Hey, did you hear that the high school is planning on holding spring break in St. Augustine next year? The ghost capital of Florida?”
She swore Michael and Granny both groaned, but a scream from the direction of the restrooms distracted her. She lifted her glass to Michael and Granny. “To solving mysteries.”
“To keeping you safe,” Michael said and winked.
“To friendship,” Granny added.
“To friendship.” Emily had to remember to thank her parents for moving here, again. For the first time ever, she belonged.
###
About the Author
Award-winning author of urban fantasy and medieval historical romantic suspense, Heart of the Wolf named in Publishers Weekly's BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR, NOR Reader Choice for BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE.
She currently has written ten books of the werewolf series based on real wolves, six out now with more to come, a new jaguar shifter series, vampire romances, Highland medieval romances, and a western time-travel ghostly romance.
Terry Spear also writes true stories for adult and young adult audiences. She’s a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has an MBA from Monmouth University and a Bachelors in Business and Distinguished Military Graduate of West Texas A & M. She also create
s award-winning teddy bears, Wilde & Woolly Bears, to include personalized bears designed to commemorate authors’ books. When she’s not writing or making bears, she’s teaching online writing courses.
Be sure to sign up for her newsletter where she gives a free serialized read once a week.
http://www.terryspear.com/
Excerpt from the fantasy young adult novel where magic rules the day, coming soon:
The Courtly Masquerade
by
Terry Spear
Chapter 1
I, Arabella, Duchess of Foxmoor Castle currently, sat at my cousin’s bedside, still unable to fathom the princess’s words. “Princess Lynet, the physician has said you are too ill to travel to Crondor to meet Prince Renault. This I understand. But why am I to go in your place instead and pretend to be you?”
Lynet’s clear brown eyes and her peach-toned skin didn’t reveal any signs of sickness. And yet, if the king’s physician said my cousin was ill, she was ill.
Lynet coiled an auburn curl of hair around her finger. “We look nearly identical, dear cousin.”
The ‘dear cousin expression’ only was used when the spoiled rotten princess wanted something of me. Last year when we had turned sixteen, Lynet talked me into taking her place at the ball to dance with a forty-year-old Borasian prince that Lynet couldn’t stomach.
I soon found out why as the prince ate tons of garlic and onions, danced on my feet, and was a total bore. I’d had a devil of a time trying not breathe in his horrifically, horrible odorous breath. Not only that, but he was of the opinion, baths make one ill.
After the dance, I feared I’d have to burn my best ball gown, when his body odor permeated the velvet fabric.
Now what did dear Lynet have in mind exactly? “Neither of us have met Prince Renault. What courtly gossip have you received that forces you to ask for my help in this matter?”
Lynet closed her eyes and sighed deeply. “So unwell, so unwell. I cannot speak of it.” She raised her hand to her forehead.
I squelched the irritation running in my blood and poured water into a brass goblet. “Would you like something to drink to ease your suffering?”
Lynet opened her eyes, smugly smiled, and shook her head. “You can only ease my suffering if you would take my place, dear cousin.”
Two dear cousins in one conversation. Now that was a world record.
I straightened my spine, not wanting to hear any more about this task—figuring this time it would be more detestable than the last.
Lynet fluttered her hand over her face, then rested it on her waist, covered by an ice blue velvet coverlet. “I’m only an inch taller than you, but otherwise our hair and eyes are the same color. And often we are mistaken for one another. Or at least we were until my father decided that you would no longer wear my favorite colors.”
Which left me with brown, black, or a pale yellow. My skin appeared sickly whenever I wore yellow, and black was worn in mourning only. So like the servants, I wore brown. Except because I am a duchess, my gowns are made of rich velvets, satins or silks, and then I stitch colorful flowers or bright green leaves to brighten the dull color. But the king had declared he didn’t wish one more suitor or courtier to mistake me for the princess. So until I marry and can leave Foxmoor, I will wear brown.
Most of the time it doesn’t bother me, except when I saw the most beautiful blue satin fabric at market that I would have made into a gown for my seventeenth birthday. Lynet swiped it from me, and made it into her seventeenth birthday gown instead.
I try not to think about that day a week ago, but sometimes the image of Lynet ripping the silky fabric from my hands and declaring, “Oh, dear cousin, you have found just the right material for my birthday gown,” comes back to me all in a rush. At these times I want to slap her, and take the fabric back, and tell her she can take a flying leap into yonder canyon. But this is only on really bad days. Like this evening.
Lynet studied me with a simpering smile on her lips. Was it from the sickness, or was it something else?
“Are you feverish? I could wipe your brow.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Well, not fine, mind you. But I don’t want cold wet compresses on my head messing up my hair.”
I nodded.
Not only did we look alike, our mothers gave birth to us only minutes apart. They were sisters, only her mother married the king, and mine married a duke. When my parents died, I inherited the dukedom of Cambria. But I could not possess it, until I wed a duke. Often times I wished my mother had been the queen, but now with Lynet having to marry this disagreeable Prince Renault, I was almost glad she was the princess.
Almost. As for now, I was to marry the despicable Duke Farthington, a forty-year-old, balding, out-of-shape, surly man who’d already buried two wives.
Prince Renault couldn’t be that bad. Could he?
“He has never met us, so he would never know it is not I who joins him,” my cousin said, touching the three-inch lace on the sleeves of her blue silk bed gown.
I studied my cousin’s healthy looking complexion. “I can’t marry the man who is to wed you. He could have me beheaded for pretending to be you if he found out.”
“You are to ensure you do everything to make him dislike you.”
“What?” Now this really was going too far.
“I wish to marry Prince Sumaria from—”
“Our mountain border. The prince in line for being king of Creshion.” Handsome, blond, extremely charismatic, from what I’d heard tell, though I’d never seen the prince. I wondered when Lynet had met him.
Lynet nodded.
I took a deep breath trying to settle my raw nerves. Pretending to be a princess, especially one that the king was using to forge an alliance with another kingdom, was an extremely dangerous thing to do.
“I am to marry Duke Farthington in a couple of months. How will my absence be explained?”
“It’s taken care of. I didn’t think you were fond of the duke.” The princess’s lips twitched up.
Of course I didn’t care for him. Most people didn’t. But he had power and money and the king’s ear. He wanted me, as I owned my own dukedom, had power and money and mine added to his would benefit him greatly.
“I don’t,” I said, in my most cheerful voice, “but I’ve been given no choice. Such is the way of royalty.” I often wondered what it would be like to be a baron’s daughter, or maybe a knight’s daughter. Would she have had more choice in her marriage to a gentleman?
“Yes, well, perhaps I can arrange for a new marital agreement,” the princess said, batting her dark eyelashes.
Perhaps? That was the key glitch to the whole thing. Perhaps my dear cousin, the princess of Lucianda, wouldn’t make the effort.
I could see myself pleading with the head chopper in Crondor, who summarily separated people’s heads from their bodies with his sharp axe. Yet should I escape such a fate...and furthermore if I were successful in convincing the prince I was his unworthy princess bride—which would be easy to do if I were truly Lynet—I would return to Foxmoor Castle and find? Dear paunchy, balding, and widowed—twice over—Duke Farthington waiting to wed me. Would the agreement have been nullified?
I hate to admit I very much doubt so. Which leads me to my current dilemma. How do I keep my wits about me, and my head connected to my neck in the interim?
But what if—and this is a big if—Lynet did stick by her word and she could arrange for me to marry someone else?
“There are no other nobles in the area as high a rank as me, who are unmarried.”
“True,” Lynet said. “But we will come to that bridge when we have to.”
Truth be known, I have always felt there is something terribly wrong with me. I just don’t find men appealing in a romantic sort of way. Though I recently learned my mother, and Lynet’s mother, my aunt, were both “late bloomers,” which may be what I am, too. When other girls are giggling, fluttering their lashes, and sticking their chests out
to get a boy’s attention, I walk on by, absolutely disinterested.
Though this is not to say I don’t like to join in the company of men on hunts, either with my bow or bird, or that I don’t enjoy a good sword or staff practice. Or that I can’t discuss the management of soldiers, farming, households and the likes on an equal basis, but this is not the same as fluttering eyelashes and smiling coyly to obtain the highly regarded...kiss.
“You must remember always to pretend you are me,” Lynet said with a giggle.
“Well, I won’t have any difficulty showing no romantic interest in Prince Renault’s charms, should he prove to be charming, or handsome, or interesting, or an avid bath taker—as I have no interest in gentleman in that regard at all.”
Lynet shook her head. “You must flirt with others in his court. Irritate him in any way that you can.”
Deliberately making the man dislike me, that’s another story. I never make it a practice to annoy people. Though I’m sure that I irritate my cousin, Lynet, at times inadvertently. A prime example goes back to the rule of dress.
I swallowed hard, hoping somehow I’d wiggle myself out of resting my head on the executioner’s block at Crondor. “Your father hasn’t said a thing about this to me. Are you sure this is what he wants?” I couldn’t imagine it was. “I thought he wanted ties to Crondor, not Creshion.”
“He wants ties to everywhere to avoid conflicts. But alas he only has one daughter.” The princess’s face brightened. “And...a look-a-like niece that could save my life.”
A little overly dramatic I thought. So she had to marry an ogre. I had to, also. And certainly what I would have to do to get her out of her predicament could put my life in real peril.
“So you’re saying the king agrees with this scheme?” I still didn’t trust that he did.
“Yes. You’re to leave tonight. I’ve already had one of my trunks packed with the gowns I wore when I was still your height. Pick out one of my brown riding gowns for the trip.”
